


a tenderness

by zannen



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Canon Universe, Developing Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 12:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zannen/pseuds/zannen
Summary: Baekhyun is in love. Maybe Kyungsoo is, too.





	a tenderness

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this could be seen as a companion piece to [a drabble](http://sweater-soo.tumblr.com/post/158495285864/26-baeksoo) I posted on Tumblr some time ago. It doesn't need context, though; just pointless fluff, really.

“We should get a house after this,” Baekhyun mumbles against the pillow. His eyes are glued shut, his brain still stuffy and groggy and not entirely there. His mouth tastes like sleep and his skin is sticky. That’s the perilous thing about naps: Sometimes they leave him feeling a little rough around the edges, like a weird sort of hangover but without any of the fun.

He thinks for a second that Kyungsoo might still be asleep, but then the body behind him shifts, the arm around his middle squeezing just the slightest bit tighter. He has to resist the temptation to put his hand over Kyungsoo’s and lace their fingers together, because that would breach the arbitrary boundaries he’s set, somehow. Even though it wouldn’t mean anything with anyone else. And maybe that’s it—maybe it wouldn’t mean anything with Kyungsoo, either.

And it’s silly for Baekhyun to worry about things like that, but. All this time of never saying out loud how they feel, even though it’s implied so thoroughly it’s not even subtext anymore, has made him sensitive to the possibility of rejection. Because the longer they go without Kyungsoo ever _really_ saying he loves him, the more Baekhyun starts to doubt.

“After what?” asks Kyungsoo. He sounds more awake than Baekhyun. Probably _is_ more awake.

“This. Everything.” Baekhyun tries to sink further into the pillows, with no success. “The idol stuff. Once we get too old and the world stops being in love with us. Or something.”

Kyungsoo hums. “That would be a big house,” he says. “Everyone’s gonna have two or three kids each, probably. Lots of dogs, too.”

Oh. “No,” says Baekhyun, his chest tightening, “I didn’t mean all of us. Just—us.”

“The two of us?”

“Yeah.”

For a terrible moment, Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything at all, and Baekhyun realizes he made a mistake by voicing any of this aloud. They aren’t together—probably for a reason. Probably because Kyungsoo doesn’t want them to be. And if they aren’t together and they haven’t expressed any intentions, or made any promises, or really talked about it, then Baekhyun shouldn’t be talking about ridiculous things like—like _living_ together. Especially not when that’s so far away. Or he hopes it is, at least. It’s hard to know when people are so fickle and the world is the way it is.

Kyungsoo’s arm moves again. He reaches his hand up and touches Baekhyun’s arm, warm fingers curling around his elbow. Then he breaks the silence with, “Where?”

“Where what?”

“The house,” says Kyungsoo. “Where do you want it to be?”

“Oh. I—” In the middle of nowhere, off in the countryside where they can be alone and undisturbed. Or another country entirely, with a different language that neither of them even knows—somewhere tropical, maybe, warm and sunny and beautiful. Somewhere where hardly anyone knows who they are and no one will ask questions and maybe, just maybe, they won’t care about the way Baekhyun loves Kyungsoo like they would here. If Kyungsoo even wants to be loved that way, that is. Baekhyun licks his lips. “Somewhere quiet.”

“Okay.” Kyungsoo’s thumb presses softly into Baekhyun’s arm. “I’d like that.”

“You would?”

“Yeah. I mean, us buying a house together. Or…” A pause. “Buying a house together,” he says again, a little softer than before.

A nervous giggle rises up from Baekhyun’s throat. “Now it just sounds like a marriage proposal.”

“Wasn’t it?”

He can’t tell if Kyungsoo’s joking, so he doesn’t reply, because if it _is_ a joke… well. He isn’t sure he wants to know. Doesn’t want to think this is something Kyungsoo could joke about or take lightly. He opens his eyes, lids heavy, and squints at the far wall. Still needs to wipe the remnants of sleep from his eyes; for now everything’s just sad and out of focus.

“Is that a no?” Kyungsoo says after a moment, sounding hesitant, uncertain, small. His body goes stiff against Baekhyun’s, his hand pulling away. “Sorry. I thought you—”

Baekhyun grabs Kyungsoo’s hand with his own pins-and-needles one that’s been resting halfway under him. His eyes widen. It takes him a moment to form words. “You were serious?”

“Yeah. I was. I am.”

 “You can’t just say things like that,” says Baekhyun, heart racing. “We can’t get—we haven’t even—” He makes a wordless noise of disbelief. “It’s—silly. It doesn’t make sense.”

Kyungsoo lets out something close to a sigh. “What haven’t we done, Baekhyun? That matters,” he adds.

“Kiss,” Baekhyun blurts out, immediately regretting it when he feels his face heat up. It’s such a ridiculous thing to be embarrassed about—it’s just the truth, after all. They _haven’t_ kissed. Not like that. Not for real. To classify kissing as _something that matters_ , though—what a weird, frightening thing.

“Do you want me to kiss you now?” asks Kyungsoo. “Bad breath and everything?”

“I don’t kiss before the first date,” says Baekhyun.

“We’ve been on dozens of things that could be considered dates.”

Baekhyun lets go of Kyungsoo’s hand and rolls over to face him. Their knees bump. The hand that had settled just at the bottom of Baekhyun’s ribs before comes to rest on his hip now, and Kyungsoo looks at him through eyes that are a soft kind of earnest. Warm. It brings an unexpected smile to Baekhyun’s face.

“That’s not how it works,” he says. “It’s not a date unless everyone agrees it is. You’re really out of practice with this stuff, huh?”

“I must be,” Kyungsoo says wryly. “You’ll have to help me out.”

“Step one,” says Baekhyun. “You have to ask me out on a date.”

“Baekhyun, do you want to go on a date with me ten seconds from now on this bed?”

“That’s not—” Baekhyun huffs. “Fine. Yes.”

Kyungsoo laughs and his whole face lights up. For Baekhyun, _love_ no longer feels like a sufficient word to describe his feelings for the man lying in front of him. It’s so woefully inadequate now that they’re here, face-to-face, not quite able to hide from the truth anymore.

“Now that we’re on a date,” Kyungsoo says, still smiling and looking a little ethereal, “is it time for me to kiss you?”

“That’s step two, yeah,” says Baekhyun.

“That’s too bad. I don’t kiss until the second date.”

Baekhyun laughs and shoves him by the shoulder, but not hard enough to break them apart. “You ruined the moment, you dick.”

“Okay, well. If the mood’s been killed, then we should definitely end this date,” says Kyungsoo. “But I’d really like to see you again, if you’ll give me another chance.”

Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Baekhyun says, “I guess.”

“Five seconds from now, same place as last time?”

“Yeah, might as—”

Kyungsoo doesn’t kiss him, but he comes so close to it that Baekhyun freezes. Their mouths must be only millimeters apart. Then, all at once, Baekhyun feels like he’s been jerked out of a deep sleep, and for a too-long moment he isn’t sure what to say or do. As though sensing his panic, Kyungsoo backs off; when his face comes into focus Baekhyun sees a look of worry, or maybe self-consciousness.

“Just—we don’t have to, Kyungsoo,” says Baekhyun. “Nothing has to change. We can stay friends.”

Something shifts in Kyungsoo’s expression, something in the furrow between his brows. “No,” he says. “I don’t—we haven’t just been friends for a long time, Baekhyun.” The frown deepens. There’s a terrible kind of hurt in his eyes. “But if you don’t—want to, we don’t have to do anything. You’re right, nothing has to change.”

Baekhyun kisses him, closed-mouth. Once, softly, then again, less softly—but only just.

“How many dates,” he asks, already almost breathless, “until I can say I was serious, too? About all of it?”

“Zero,” says Kyungsoo. “Less than zero.”

His mouth meets Baekhyun’s in a kiss so sweet it’s a little painful. It’s a falling-in-love-all-over-again kiss, a making-up-for-lost-time kiss. An I-could-die-happy kiss. Baekhyun wants so badly to just melt into him, to become one seamless thing and never separate and always be in this moment. His heart has never felt so large as it does right now, nor the hugeness of his feelings like such a non-burdensome thing.

“We’ll have a dog and two cats,” Kyungsoo says the moment they break apart.

“Two dogs,” says Baekhyun.

Kyungsoo laughs. “Three cats,” he counters.

“As many as you want.” Baekhyun kisses him again. “You could tell me you wanna move to Antarctica and adopt thirty penguins and I’d—say you’re an idiot, probably, but. I’d still go with you. Anywhere, Soo.”

“Forty penguins,” Kyungsoo says with a smile. “But I would, too. Anywhere.”

A too-happy laugh bursts out. “We already sound gross and sappy and married.”

“Good.” Kyungsoo looks almost as deliriously happy as Baekhyun feels. Glowing. “That’s all I want to be.”

Now seems like as good a time as any. Baekhyun starts to say, “I lo—”

Kyungsoo kisses him again, and the words that felt so important just moments ago don’t seem necessary anymore. The entire world is just Kyungsoo’s mouth, his hands, his so-happy laugh.


End file.
